This latest bank gimmie comes in the retrading of consent orders that were entered into in April 2011. Readers who followed the mortgage beat closely may recall that the OCC broke with other banking regulators, the DoJ, and HUD in entering into its own consent decrees in the hope of undermining the mortgage negotiations. But this OCC settlement (which the Fed joined) was in some ways broader that the one entered into by 49 state attorneys general and various Federal agencies in early 2012, in that it involved the 14 major servicers, while the later state/Federal deal was limited to the biggest five. The banks piously promised to shape up, and were required to conduct reviews of foreclosures performed in a specified time frame if consumers asked for them, plus conduct a review of a sample of other foreclosures.

Also:

…The feckless conduct of what passes for leadership in America is too well established to pretend that the results are the result of good intentions stymied or gone awry. You can see the gory details above, that the outcome here was no mistake. It was not merely predictable, it was predicted as soon as the settlements were announced.